Texas Airports: How to Choose Your Best Option

Texans have options when it comes to airports.

Best departure and/or arrival city for your trip?

Start with where you live.

If you are starting in the Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex or the Greater Houston area, you have a spectacular array of flights for which to choose.

Two of the biggest airlines operating in the United States, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, headquarter in the Dallas area. American flies out of Dallas / Fort Worth International Airport, located between Dallas and Fort Worth. Southwest’s home base is Dallas Love Field, just north of downtown Dallas.

Houston’s two airports, George Bush International Airport and Houston Hobby Airport, operate as hubs for several airlines.

If, however, you are like me and live aways away from Dallas, Fort Worth or Houston, you still have a decent number of choices.

Texas Airports

According to the Texas Department of Transportation, there over 300 airports open to the public in the state of Texas, giving us one of the largest general aviation airport systems in the nation.

Of course, the vast majority of those 300 airports do not offer scheduled passenger flights, so we’ll just concentrate on the Texas-sized handful that do.

Texas Airports Served by Commercial Airlines*

The busiest airports in Texas are in Dallas, Houston and Austin (shown above in italics).

An international airport, like it sounds, services flights with arrivals or departures from outside the United States. US Customs is onsite. These airports are large and located in some of Texas’ most populated cities. The majority of scheduled flights coming in and out of international airports are domestic.

A regional airport is typically smaller than an international airport, located in smaller markets and only fly short, domestic routes using smaller aircraft. Examples of cities with regional airports are Waco, Tyler and Harlingen.

Smaller airports

We all have our reasons for not living in Dallas or Houston.

Attracting millions of airplane passengers annually, plus all those airplane noises overhead, could easily be one of them.

That, however, will never mean we will only fly out of smaller airports that are closer to our homes. We want it both ways, dang it!

Choosing Your Best Flight

I use Google Flights to narrow down my best options. And here’s how you can too!

On the opening screen of [ google.com/travel/flights ], Google may already give you your departure city, or you can enter your own.

Where from?

In the example below, I typed “Waco, Texas” in the Where from? window?

See how four airport options are offered up? They are the ones with the airplane icons.

Waco Regional is listed and it is a mere 6 miles from the city center. DFW, Austin and Dallas Love Field are also there, each 90+ mile drives from Waco, because they will give you SOOOOOO many more flights listings.

So, by clicking on “Waco, Texas” (instead of only one of the airports), Google Flights compares all your flight options from those four airports and gives you more options to choose from, than if you searched only one of the cities.

By breaking down the costs in time and money, you may find driving the extra miles is worth it.

Where to?

Next, enter your Where to? city.

For this example, I randomly picked “Fort Collins, Colorado” and got two arrival options.

Choosing “Fort Collins, Colorado” gives you flights into Denver International Airport and Cheyenne Regional Airport. Again, click on “Fort Collins, Colorado” to see all the options for both airports.

Before you hit the blue “Search” button (hidden from view in this screenshot), enter your travel dates. Or skip that step and Google provides a calendar with pricing options. Which is good if your travel agenda is flexible.

From there you can lock in dates and click the “Search” button.

By selecting January 1, these are the options Google Flights selected for my imaginary avionic adventure.

As you may have noticed, none of the top six options depart Waco and none land in Cheyanne. But we tried!

Clicking on the down arrow in the right column provides more details.

Once you sort through and find your ideal option, you can book through Google Flights. Or use a reward earning app like Hopper.

This is a reader supported site! Affiliate partners are carefully vetted, with our readers in mind, to add value and benefits to our content. Should you choose to follow the links and make a purchase, TexansTouring may earn a small commission at no additional expense to you.

Happy Travels, y’all!

For tips on finding your best flight deal, visit our other post.

---

Sign up for our Email List by filling out this simple form.

First Name

Email address

Leave this field empty if you're human:

---

Flight Planning Journals Now Available!

Okay. These dotted-line journals are not specially for flight planning. However, they are a fabulously convenient size for taking any sort of notes and the fun cover make them difficult to forget.

Nine Arnie the Armadillo covers now available! Shown above – Arnie in the spotlight, Texas Two-Step Arnie and Line Dancing Arnie. Each design comes in red, white and blue background.

To order, please click on the photo or this link. Gracias!